650 Red and White Quilts

Joanna Semel Rose collected so many red and white quilts over the years, sometimes when they were used to wrap other items she bought at flea markets, that she didn’t know how many she had. When her husband asked what she would like for her eightieth birthday, she said, “Something I’ve not seen before, and something that would be a gift for New York City.” She said that seeing all her red and white quilts at one time would be the ideal gift. So, the American Folk Art Museum arranged an exhibit of her 650 quilts in the Park Avenue Armory. It was completely free and open to all New Yorkers for 6 days this week. I walked into the exhibit hall and was overwhelmed by this homage to two centuries of anonymous homemakers who beautified countless lives with their painstaking handiwork.